Technisches Halloren- und Salinemuseum

Description

The Salinemuseum Halle is located on the historic Salineinsel in Halle (Saale) and documents the city's long connection to salt production. Geologically, local brine extraction is based on deposits in the Zechstein; tectonic faults allow rock salt to reach the surface naturally as brine, whereas elsewhere in Central Europe salt is mined underground or extracted by artificial solution mining.

Salt extraction from brine in Halle dates back to the Bronze Age and was concentrated around the Hallmarkt at several wells, including the Meteritzbrunnen, mentioned as early as 803, the Gutjahrbrunnen, the Hackesche Born and the Deutschen Born. For centuries the brine was boiled in Koten at the Hallmarkt; the pfännerschaft saltworks there ceased production in 1869. On the Salineinsel a royal saltworks was established in 1721 at the behest of the Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm I; the brine supply initially ran through pipes from the wells at the Hallmarkt, and from 1926 a well on the Holzplatz was used. The saltworks complex remained in operation until the plant was shut down in 1964.

In 1967 the Halloren Museum opened in the buildings of the former Königlich-Preußischen Saline; after the commissioning of an evaporation-pan installation in 1969 it was renamed the Technisches Halloren- und Salinemuseum. Since 2020 the museum has been closed for extensive renovation; the plan is to develop it into a modern industrial museum presenting the Halloren‑Bruderschaft and the history of salt from prehistory to the end of industrial production. The factory buildings themselves — initial installations from 1719–1721, the salt magazine known as the Uhrenhaus, a boiling house dating from 1789 and further 19th‑century structures — are regarded as early examples of industrial architecture and are presented as part of the exhibition. In addition, the former narrow‑gauge coal railway recalls the supply of the saltworks with brown coal; the former opencast‑mine remnant is now visible as the cemetery pond.